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Thursday, May 19, 2011

Amazon mTurk Part 2 - Review

Ease of Use: 4/5

mTurk favors the worker. There is no rating/feedback system; when you submit a task, it is either approved and paid, or rejected and not paid. At first this may seem like a bad thing, especially if you are just starting out on mTurk. But believe me when I say this is actually a very, very good thing that absolutely works in your favor.

Why? Because the power is in the hands of the worker. On eBay, a few bad ratings can tank your sales. On oDesk, unless you have really impressive feedback, you won't get hired. However, on mTurk as long as you follow the instructions for the task, it will be approved and you'll be paid.

Additionally, there is nothing barring you from working on mTurk. You can accept any task you are qualified for, and on most tasks, the only qualification is a high approval rating. No sweat.

Payment: 1/5

Payment. You get paid for the tasks you complete on your Amazon Payments account, which you can use to shop Amazon and a bunch of other sites: https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/personal/directory

If you are in the US you can also have the balance transferred to your [verified] bank account.

This really blows because while the payment is quick, you can only use the money towards purchases on Amazon.com or their affiliates unless you live in the US. If you are not in the US: unless you purchase from Amazon a lot of the time, or you're specifically saving up for a big purchase (again, on Amazon), it's pretty much not worth it.

The only redeeming factor here is that payment is quick, usually 1-3 days from your tasks being accepted.

Risk: 5/5

The risk here is negligible. You're not investing anything or giving out your information to 3rd parties, and payment is pretty much guaranteed. 

Who would I recommend mTurk to?
If you:

-Live in the US & have a US bank account
-Already have specific things you buy or want to buy from Amazon
OR
-Are bored, have some time to kill, and don't mind doing quick mind-numbing tasks

Then mTurk is probably for you. Can you make a living working on Amazon Mechanical Turk? Maybe. If you're willing to look at it like a real job, work several hours a day without many distractions, and are in the US, you could probably pull at least $3-400 a month. Honestly, though, there are a lot of other websites and projects I would recommend if you are looking to work and support yourself exclusively online. 

mTurk is a nice supplemental income. I think in the last few months I've made about $60 and I did it for about an hour a day or less.

9 comments:

  1. such a pity I don't live in the US..

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  2. Ugh I remember doing some turk task a year or so ago. the work is usually incredibly easy, but the pay is absolutely not worth it. Every once in a while theres a decent paying turk, but they are few and far between. anyway, if you are just bored it can be a good way to make a little bit of money instead of doing nothing.

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  3. Mate, you've got a great blog here and it's very useful for students like me who want to find alternative ways to make a bit of money.
    Keep it up mate!

    Following :)

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  4. I used M Turk and ended up with a whole bunch of books from Amazon, I'd like to check out and see what they're offering now for payment...

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  5. Didn't know what M Turk was before reading this, now I do. Good Article.

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  6. what happened this morning? was lookin for your blog but it said it was unavailable? o-o

    Im probably gonna start the turk thing once i get this computer fixed... thanks for the info!
    Im at work all day and usualy bored when i dont have any customers, so inbetween spamming craigslist im gonna do this ;d if i can make just 5$ a day it'll pay for gas to and from work lol.

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  7. @Mark

    hmmm I have no idea >.> that's strange

    if you have time to kill I'd recommend doing a couple HITS or I've been experimenting with a site called Microworkers, seems like it might be legit and really easy stuff.

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  8. Too bad it's for US residents only. :(
    Good post though, very informative. :)

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  9. I've tried this before and don't believe it is possible to make anywhere near $4,000 a month because you spend too much time trying to find tasks that pay a decent amount.

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